Rotten Apples
by Thunderscourge
Summary: As if death itself would stop a compulsive gambler from risking it all, Sakyo has returned to the world of the living and seeks out an old acquaintance. What he finds waiting for him is more than he bargained for, and he learns that perhaps he took more risks than he originally thought in his first life. (Sakyo/Shizuru, slight Kuwabara/Yukina)


"This guy looks like he's loaded."

The man was not wrong in some regards. The man who had been cornered in an alley by three young men had on him a full suit, under which he had a dress shirt from which hung a blue tie. From any normal person's perspective, he would appear well-off if not upper class.

Being loaded required a certain perspective though. And for Sakyo, he was not loaded. He was dirt poor in a certain way.

Sakyo held his hands up to signal he had no intention of making this mugging difficult for them. He had not come back from Hell to just be killed by some random muggers on the streets of Japan. Demons couldn't take his life, so why would he give these humans the pleasure?

Sakyo smiled to them and closed his eyes. These men had no idea who they were dealing with, though without a bodyguard like Toguro there was not much Sakyo could do at the moment.

Lucky for these cretins.

"Seeing as how my dice are not, I am neither."

Betting ought to be fair, though Sakyo did not consider being well informed against any kind of fairness clause in gambling. Well informed these men were not, but he could not hold that against them. He had taken a risk, a gamble one might say, in leaving this back alley he had satiated his gambling addiction in through the way of a building's back entrance leading to a shady basement. He had won every game, of course, for his opponents were pathetic men who had no greater meaning or destiny than such an establishment.

"Shut it and give us your watch," the second thug demanded as he moved to stand directly in front of Sakyo. They all had knives drawn on him, though anyone with any street knowledge would have known where this was all going even if they had not drawn them instantly upon seeing him in his nice suit.

Well, only suit. But it was nice.

Sakyo opened his eyes as he moved to remove the watch he had on him. An expensive brand that had likely caught the simple minded man's eye as he moved in to steal from Sakyo. A watch like that cost about as much as a poor man might make in a few months of work, though Sakyo wasn't entirely too sure. He hadn't kept track of how much poor people made since he had his first job, from when he came to detest an honest day's work by mindless drones.

"Anything else? I assure you, my shoes could fetch quite the price if you know who to sell them to."

Sure, his voice was smarmy, but he honestly didn't care. He didn't have anything he couldn't easily replace on him. He had only been back a few weeks after finally winning the right to walk among the living again after what must have been years of careful bets. So long as he had some form of leverage on someone else he still had something he could wager…though he'd rather not think back to the dreadful existence he had been subjected to for quite some time, and I doubt he'd like someone else discussing it either.

The third punk shoved Sakyo back into the wall of a building. It was nighttime in a bad neighborhood, so he could make all the noise he wanted and nobody would come to help.

"Look at this punk, talking back to us like he's smart or somethin'!"

The first punk who spoke helped form a protective semi-circle around Sakyo, his knife joining that of the second man's at Sakyo's throat while the third man's hung around at his own side.

"Wallet!"

Sakyo slowly dropped a hand to his suit's inner pocket, from which he removed a well-made leather wallet with no special symbols or markings. The second thug, the one right in front of him, snatched it from him with his free hand and stepped back to start looking through it as the other men moved to threaten Sakyo in his place.

Much like the expensive watch, the wallet held great value within it. Only, this came in the form of real cash. Enough to feed a family for a year likely. Sakyo had cleaned house, and had come with quite deep pockets compared to his pathetic opponents.

"Woah, boy were we right!"

"A drop in the proverbial bucket," Sakyo smirked. Hopefully this situation would resolve soon so he could go about winning these losses back so he could hire a professional assassin to hunt and kill these men, and then pay him with the money these thugs had dared take from him. They took a risk and gamble when they mugged a random man, not knowing the true danger that he posed to their health despite his posh appearance.

He did not expect them to understand the idiom, but it was true. To him this was nothing. Even with relatively nothing, he had more than they ever would. Such was the mind of a rich snob, and Sakyo was nothing if not rich with a narrow view of what made one worth living.

"What does that mean?" one of them asked, though he never received a response to the query because his compatriot had found something else that actually made Sakyo drop his cooled expression.

"What's this?" the one with the wallet asked as he found a hidden compartment behind where the various cards in the wallet lay. Behind the cards, behind the cash, was a small photo that he pulled out. It was creased and folded up in quite the methodical manner, as if its owner had folded it up and put it there specifically to hide it from even himself.

"Touch that and I will carve out your heart and feed it to your family."

The sudden threat was matched by an intent glare from Sakyo. He was no longer mildly amused that these pathetic cretins were unwittingly getting themselves in over their heads. He was ready to go back to the very beginning of his compulsions.

This threat was met with the two men threatening him still trying to move to teach him a violent lesson in pain via the tips of their knives, but he reacted faster.

Sakyo brought his still raised arm down on the man to his left's arm, batting the knife down from his neck in the process. At the same time he forced his other arm out to shove the man to his right out of knife stabbing range.

"As if I'm scared by some pretty boy who can't count!" the man with the wallet shouted as he rushed forward to impale Sakyo.

Sakyo was not a man who could fight well. He had others do that for him, but even he had a point at which he would rather earn his way back up from hell than just bite his tongue and let these fools humiliate him.

The man had dropped the photo as he impaled Sakyo with the knife, so when Sakyo fell onto his side he was able to try and grab it while the men all began to rifle through the contents of his wallet.

A knife in his lower chest and red spreading all over his white shirt, Sakyo snatched at the picture with two people on it that he had been given a few weeks back, when he first came to return to the land of the living.

"Shizuru…"

He hadn't been alive a month after gambling his soul to the devil itself, and now he was headed right back without half as much dignity. This, Sakyo would argue, was why he preferred not caring about others.

* * *

It was late when he entered her home without anyone knowing. He had slipped in through an unlocked door, though he would have found a way to get in regardless.

It only took a little bit of snooping to find out more about the woman he had given his lighter back at the Dark Tournament. He really had nothing to do or care about since he was back. His goal had been ruined and it would be years before he could try again. The fact that Spirit World allowed for demons and spirits to come and go between the worlds these days didn't help his diabolical goals of having demons run rampant against humanity, especially since they had turned out to be such tame things when some authority figure told them to play nice.

So he decided to see if he could find her and enjoy her presence like he had the chance to at the Dark Tournament. What had started as a pair of cynical smokers doing their shared sin ended as one of the more enjoyable moments for him at the tournament, and it was the only one that didn't involve other people fighting.

Instead, it had been a struggle between two strong willed people in a private room. Apparently it had meant enough to her, along with the two occasions he saved her life, to cause her to cry at his death. No one else had cared. He didn't expect anyone else to. Caring was for the weak, such as his pathetic parents and their common little family where they didn't have money but everyone lived happily together.

Living in Hell itself, or rather one incarnation of it since he later found that Toguro had gone to another kind, had left him with a good deal of time to wonder what it would be like to be with her again. Would it be exciting as the first time, when they were two apathetic adults enjoying what they could from the other, or would it delve into monotony like the living Hell that his parents life had been?

"Sakyo?" Shizuru groggily murmured as she felt a body sit upon her bed. It was dark, but she could feel his familiar energy given her psychic powers. He had worked hard to move through the house without waking anyone, though now that he had snuck into her room like a bandit he was lowering his guard. He had anticipated the sight of another man at her side, but no such irritating sight met his eyes when he came in.

Sakyo didn't say anything as he watched her roll over in bed. He did suppose it was late, though he didn't really care. That would mean caring for someone other than himself. While he enjoyed her presence, it was because he felt she understood him and he did not need to put up any pretenses around her. She understood he was a sick sociopath and she did not care.

"Another night, another dream…" Shizuru murmured as she buried her head into the side of his leg, her body curling up to form an outline around him. She was barely awake and it was showing, so Sakyo decided to change that. This wouldn't be as fun if she was half-asleep.

"I am afraid not," Sakyo jested in an attempt to draw her attention.

It worked, because Shizuru woke up quickly and moved up to look at him. He just smiled at her as she looked at him with the most stunned face he had ever seen. She hadn't ever expected to see him again, though a recurring dream (or nightmare depending on how she viewed it) was him somehow finding his way back from the Hell he condemned himself to…

Because it was impossible for him to come back, right? He wasn't like Yusuke. He wouldn't just be given a second chance…but if that was the case, why did it feel like Sakyo was really at her side?

"But…"

Sakyo leaned in to have his head hovering by her ear to whisper, "It turns out that when you stake the very existence of your soul, you can get people to bet all kinds of things," her breathe caught in her throat as she listened to the world's most skilled gambler say in a calm voice that contrasted the statement, "It took awhile in Hell, but eventually I earned my life back."

He wasn't the kind to kid around…and that made a chill go down her spine. Just what had he gone through to win back something as valuable as his life itself wholesale?

But…he was back. She could feel it. This was most certainly real. And hey, she was no fool. The smirk on his face, the large scar running down his face, his calm indifference, his classy suit…

This was Sakyo. The man who had loved and left her….well, he had done the latter, but a part of her had hoped he had done the former too. Thinking that made her own grief easier after he threw his life away. So little had been said between them, yet she had never felt more connected with any other man in her life in those few days she knew him.

"You crazy bastard," she smirked. He had come back, and he had come back to her. She didn't claim to understand why, but he had come back into her life and she was going to enjoy it while she could.

Even if it was just the one night, it was enough for her…

A thought struck Suzuru as her mind finally finished gaining full coherence. No longer groggy, something important she ought to let him know started to find its way out of her lips.

"Sakyo, I—"

She didn't finish because of the lips forcefully pressed on top of her own. With that she lost sight of her previous intention to inform him of something, and with that they spent their second time in bed together.

Sakyo had forgotten what this kind of embrace felt like, but he was quite sure it was better than spending the rest of existence in a world of eternal torment. He wouldn't have minded if it wasn't his torment and not that of others, so he had sought out a change in situation.

He wasn't quite ready for the change in situation he was to be dealt though.

* * *

The next morning when she woke up she was not surprised to find that he was no longer beside her. Not a single piece of the suit he had worn there remained, and so Shizuru was about ready to think the past night a dream until she noticed other kinds of proof that he had been there.

Still, he had come and gone. As to be expected of a self-absorbed man…

"Good morning."

As Shizuru shuffled into the kitchen and dining room of her house, she found herself taken aback by how Sakyo was quietly sitting at the table with a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other. His casual greeting didn't even follow a turn of the head, as he seemed quite absorbed in drinking his cup of the coffee he had made.

"Good morning," Shizuru mimed, her own face displaying surprise in contrast to his serene appearance. It almost seemed as if he was enjoying the quiet of the morning more than any man ought to. Most people hated the morning after all, but here he was calmly sitting and thinking to himself.

If he had truly been in Hell, perhaps this was something he had not had the ability to do for quite some time.

"You're…"

He was really there.

"Let me guess, you made a bet with the devil himself and came out on top?"

That made him grow an amused smirk. She had no idea. It started small, but with enough wit and with careful betting quite literally anything was possible for a man with genius such as his.

"Perhaps," he lifted the coffee to his lips to hide his own expression as she took the seat across from him and poured herself some coffee to start the day. Once she had sat, he lowered his own cup and continued to smirk, "And surprisingly, it was a her."

Shizuru rose her eyebrows, partly surprised, though she didn't care enough to question it. She didn't need to know every detail of his life, and he didn't care to narrate it all. Just enough to matter, but not enough to bore anyone including himself.

After downing her own cup of coffee in a single try, Shizuru decided she ought to bring up the thing she was thinking about the night before. What she really ought to let him know…even if it was partly against her better judgment.

"Sakyo, we need to have a talk. An important one," she announced along with a serious look cast in his direction. For the first time that morning he focused his eyes on her.

"Is this about our time at the Dark Tournament?"

Shizuru felt her stomach grow nervous as she thought about how to bring up such a delicate issue.

"Something like that…" she paused again to gather her thoughts, though she never managed to finish, and so she forever felt like an idiot, "You see…"

"Mommy, who's that?"

Sakyo was not the kind to lose his composure under nearly any circumstance. He had briefly lost it when he realized he lost the bet he had wagered his life on, though it returned within moments of the fact.

This was a similar situation as Sakyo looked over the young girl who had entered the edge of the room as was looking at him bashfully. She looked like a younger Shizuru, only with shoulder length hair that was jet black instead of brown.

Jet black hair, and dark blue eyes instead of Shizuru's brown. It was hard to tell much more about her because she had moved back after seeing the strange man and hid her body behind part of the doorway, with only her head leaning in.

Shizuru felt herself tense up at what was undoubtedly going to be an awkward conversation between herself, her daughter, and the room's sociopath who was now looking at her with his own deep blue eyes.

"Well…" Shizuru began, though she still had not come up with something to say. How could she explain this to both Sakyo and her daughter at the same time?

Sakyo picked up the slack as he turned back to face the girl with his common nonchalant smile. He wasn't an idiot, and it had been what, five years? Six years? This girl was around that age in any case, and her appearance was quite telling.

"I am your father," he announced in an amused voice. Oh, he was not expecting this. He didn't even know how to feel about this. Still, he was not fond of being wrong, so he turned to Shizuru for confirmation, "At least, I presume I am."

Shizuru did not deny it, and instead she looked away with sad eyes cast to the floor.

The young child looked at Sakyo in some confusion, as if her young mind was considering the fact that this random man in a suit was her father, "Daddy?"

Shizuru finally nodded her head yes. She had been trying to find a way to convey this news, but how just hadn't hit her until now, "He's right," she sighed and looked up at the girl across the room, "Naomi, this is your father, Sakyo. He came back last night."

Sakyo felt himself tense up as he found himself rushed and hugged at an equally rapid pace. Sure, she was only tall enough to really grab his lower abdomen, but it still left him feeling weird. This was a feeling he was not familiar with, and he honestly did not know how to react to the situation. He was already smirking again after his previous shock and yet he didn't know if he wanted to smirk.

"Naomi," he said to himself as he brought a hand down to the top of the girl's head. She was…cute, he decided.

Cute things sickened him. They always had. But this…

"You look so pretty daddy!" she chirped as she tried to reach up and touch his long flowing mane of hair. He let out an amused noise at her attempts, though he didn't move to help her succeed in them.

"I suppose I could be called that," he went back and took another drink from his coffee cup. It was surprising how Naomi's features really were such that any given person could see the relation between them all, "You look just like your mother, only with my hair."

Naomi buried her face in Sakyo's chest as she moved to climb up on top of him and continued her embrace, "Everyone says my hair is pretty, but yours is even longer daddy!"

Sakyo sighed. He could not really blame the girl for being so touchy-feely with the father she apparently had been deprived of the entirety of her life, but it didn't mean he liked being touched by some happy child. It felt dangerously like the kind of thing he swore he would never have or be like.

He needed to speak with Shizuru before this coddling continued any further.

"Naomi, I apologize, but I need to have a talk with your mother. Why don't you go play outside while we do grown up talk?"

"Okay daddy!"

Both Sakyo and Shizuru watched as Naomi moved to go outside, where a glass sliding door let the girl out into a modest yard where she went about amusing herself. Once the door was closed and the two were alone again Shizuru was the one to break their shared silence.

"So, I know you said you'd kill yourself if you were ever like your parents…"

That was true, Sakyo admitted. He had said that…though…

Sakyo sighed to himself as he realized that while he was no family man, perhaps this was still…fine. It wasn't as if he was bounded to any of this. It wasn't like he had to do the idealistic family gatherings for picnics and any of that nonsense.

He had a daughter, and if he influenced her a bit perhaps he could prevent her from going on to be a boring person like his own family had been. At least he wasn't like them, at which point he would actually contemplate returning to Hell.

"I am not working a white collar job, am I?" he said with an amused face, though it was little more expressive than any of his other stoic looks.

Shizuru felt her heart flutter at his words. His response wasn't an "I'm fine with this", but it did say that he didn't hate this revelation so much that he felt like it was a repeat of his parent's existence. It wasn't positive, but it surely wasn't negative like it could have been.

"No, but…" Shizuru cursed herself at her own inability to finish a sentence that day. Things really weren't working for her in the world of talking, though she was by no means used to such a situation as this all.

Sakyo changed the subject to get off the uncomfortable topic of his being fine with this. Talking about how Naomi existing made him feel was not something he even wanted to contemplate just yet.

"Sex. The ultimate gamble."

He laughed, and so Shizuru found her fears evaporating. She was worried he would go all psychopath on her but…he wasn't reacting badly, and he was even laughing at himself in a way. Or the situation. Still, it was better than him being seething mad at finding out he had fathered a child.

"You're not mad?"

"When two people sleep together there is usually an unspoken agreement that there is a risk a child will be born of the act," Sakyo explained as if it all were some amusing joke, "Many things can and do alter these odds, but in the end it is a gamble for any sexual beings to take."

Silence fell between the two as they watched Naomi start messing with a punching bag roughly shaped into the image of Yusuke Yurameshi, no doubt a leftover of the old rivalry between Shizuru's brother and the spirit detective.

After a half minute of this silence, Sakyo spoke again with the intent to not give Shizuru any false illusions.

"I don't intend to stay."

She sighed as she nodded affirmatively to him, "That's fine. I didn't expect you to."

"I have a fortune to win back," he explained, though he said no more.

A fortune he no longer knew what to spend on, but a fortune nonetheless.

He'd spent so long trying to get out of Hell that he'd not made adequate plans for when he was free of it, having passed off the whole topic as unnecessary because he would just observe the situation in the Human world when he returned.

Sakyo did not regret anything, but he was unsure about how he wanted to approach this. He did not even know how he felt about it all, as the news had given him a feeling he had no experience with.

So, when he left without another word, Shizuru understood completely. She had been able to read him like an open book from the beginning, and she was under no illusions that he was some angel. He was a bad man who just so happened to have some kind of odd affection for her, just as she had a strange attraction towards him.

She didn't stop him, but a part of her hoped that one day he would come back.

* * *

"Hey, you get your ass back here!"

Shizuru was not the only one living in the house though.

Sakyo turned around from his position on the sidewalk to see a tall man in a school uniform approaching him. The man's orange hair in its ridiculous pompadour gave his identity away instantly to Sakyo, who remembered quite well when this man "died" at the Dark Tournament against Toguro, but only after first defeating one of the two brothers.

Sakyo was glad that the back yard was not in view from the street, as he had a feeling that this would not end up as an appropriate conversation or view for a child.

"Kazuma Kuwabara. You fared well against the Elder Toguro brother in the tournament," Sakyo complimented as the younger but larger man stormed over to him.

"Shut up!" Kuwabara shouted as he grabbed Sakyo by the neck and lifted him off his feet in a swift movement, revealing some of the strength he used to succeed so many years back, "What do you think you're doing!?"

Oh, yes. Kuwabara was one of the worn and tired "honor-bound" people. This was going to be more difficult than Sakyo expected.

"Being picked up by a teenaged man. I ought to work out more," he matter-of-factly replied with some sarcasm, though this did nothing to endear him to Kuwabara.

Kuwabara growled as he gripped the front of Sakyo's dress shirt even tighter, his other hand balling into a fist and preparing to be launched into this man's face, "You always got something smart to say, so how come you're so stupid? I mean, I'm not the sharpest tool in the box, but even I know how great my sister is. Who do you think you are just leaving her like that? A man doesn't leave his family!"

Sakyo sighed. Yes, Kuwabara really was the type to place honor before all reason. That didn't mean he couldn't be lead to it like a horse to water, so perhaps he could drop his obstinate nature for a moment and grasp something more than what it meant to be a "man".

The gambler coldly stared at Kuwabara, which had the effect of unnerving the younger man whether Sakyo intended that or not.

"May I call you Kazuma?"

At that Kuwabara let Sakyo down. His initial rage was stifled by the cold response to his impassioned speech, and he was curious what this smug man had to say.

"Kazuma, who was behind all the events at the Dark Tournament?"

That kept Kuwabara silent as Sakyo brought a cigarette to his lips and lit it. He had unconsciously put out his other one when Naomi had embraced him, whether it was to prevent himself from rudely blowing smoke in a toddler's face or for her own health he was not quite sure, but he'd like to think it was the former because of his refined yet cold nature.

Given that he still had the man's attention, Sakyo decided to lay out all his cards for his verbal opponent to see. Why hold back when this man could so easily end his life over any provocation?

"I am not a good man. I don't want to be. I am selfish and only care about things that can appeal to my own egocentric tendencies. I found out today that not only does a woman I met long ago still carries a torch for me, but also that our past relationship resulted in a child. The best thing I can do is leave the picture I was not a part of previously and let you all live happily without my presence."

Kuwabara's face faltered as Sakyo spoke. He knew what the man was saying to be true, but some part of the hopeless, honorable romantic had hoped that something good could come of this. When he came downstairs and saw Sakyo leaving not even Shizuru's scolding had been enough to keep him from going out and giving Sakyo a piece of his mind.

In a further attempt to appeal to Kuwabara's sensibilities Sakyo continued in a different vein, "I have my own honor, though it is vastly different from your own. Think though, will your sister truly be happy living with a sociopath with a gambling addiction so great he bet his life once and lost?"

Kuwabara hung his head and clenched his fists as tightly as the large man could manage. This broke so many of the codes he had set forth as the ideals a man should live up to, but…Sakyo was right. The only thing Kuwabara would hate more than Sakyo leaving was him staying and making all of their lives more complicated.

"I don't like what you're doing, but I get it. My big sis knows what she's doing, and as messed up as it is I think you're doing the best you can."

Thinking he had settled the issue, Sakyo turned to leave, though Kuwabara resumed growling which kept the gambler from actually going anywhere.

"That doesn't mean I'm fine with you just completely walking out though. My sister works hard to put food on our table, you know, and now that my niece knows her father is around you had better visit on birthdays and stuff!"

Birthdays and stuff? What an eloquent man. Sakyo would have laughed if he was not sure he would be beaten for it.

Instead he suppressed it to an amused smirk and little more, "I already left enough money for you all to pay the bills for a year inside, as well as not work. I may be broke, but broke for a trillionaire is not the kind of broke most people know."

"Daddy!"

Once again interrupting, Naomi appeared and rushed over to join Sakyo and Kuwabara on the sidewalk. She gave Sakyo's leg a tight embrace which made the man feel the odd sensation in his chest rise. Was this a result of his uncharacteristic emotional attachment to some random woman he met in the days before his death? What was this feeling?

Not knowing really how to play the part of a father, he patted her on the head gently as she took to gripping his leg as tightly as could be, "Hey."

Naomi couldn't tell that her father wasn't experiencing the same feeling of absolute love she was. She had always wondered what her father was like, and her mother never spoke about him and scolded Naomi for asking before. She was at an age where she didn't need anything more than the fact that he was her father to be ever so in love with him, for she was just happy that he was here now even if he was quiet.

She stopped her tight embrace and let it devolve into a tenuous one as she looked up at Kuwabara, who had dropped any hint of anger at the sight of his niece, "Uncle Kazu, you know daddy too?"

Kuwabara was bent hallway over so he could be on her level as he gave her a dopey yet affectionate grin that made Sakyo want to gag, "Yes, he and I go way back! He was on the other team back when I was in the Dark Tournament!"

"Oooh, really?" Naomi tugged on her father's sleeve and smiled brightly at this new revelation, "Daddy, did you fight somebody?"

"My rival was Lord Koenma of Spirit World, but we never came to blows," he dropped his cigarette and stepped on it gently to put it out. She came out to see him off, and he didn't want this conversation to go into the tournament where he died. Somehow that felt inappropriate, "Did you have something to say?"

"Oh, yeah," Naomi replied absently as she reached into a pocket. After a moment of rustling around in it she removed a flat object and held it up as high as she could reach for Sakyo to see.

It was a picture of Shizuru sitting with Naomi in her lap, the two apparently surprised to see that someone was taking a picture of them because they were turning to see it. Despite this, they seemed…happy, and that brought back the feeling that was making Sakyo feel so uncomfortable.

Unlike other things that made him feel bad in some way, Sakyo did not plan to rectify this with murder.

As Sakyo picked up the picture from Naomi's hands the little girl decided to explain it to him, "Mommy says you might not be back for a long time, so I wanted you to have a picture of us."

Sakyo closed his eyes and sighed. Once the richest man in the world, now what was he? Was he so poor and weak now that he was allowing the feelings that crippled his parents and siblings to get to him too?

"Daddy," Naomi repeated as she buried herself into his leg and hugged it tight again. A crack in her voice revealed that perhaps she was about to cry.

To perhaps alleviate her feelings of sorrow stemming from his leaving, Sakyo lowered himself down to her level and returned the embrace given to him. He was not a hugger, but something told him that this was the appropriate response to this situation, "Thank you."

Naomi rubbed one eye where tears were threatening to come out, "Come back soon, okay daddy? I'll miss you…"

Even Sakyo was not so heartless as to tell the child no. Besides, it wasn't as if he had a whole lot else to do these days…and Shizuru was quite welcoming…

He gave her an affectionate run on the head, his hand running through her hair he recognized distinctly as being his own, "I will. Now, how about you go inside and tell your mother goodbye for me?"

Sakyo was a man of his word, though keeping this promise also made him partly suicidal and longing for the tormenting place known as Hell.

"Okay, daddy," Naomi leaned up to kiss him on the cheek, "I love you."

With that she left them to go back inside, at which point Kuwabara gave a sigh as he slowly came to his full height.

"She's a good kid."

Sakyo had to agree from what little exposure he had so far…but that didn't make him feel giddy like it might some other parent. All it meant to him was that she wasn't a nuisance. That's all, he would say.

Still, he couldn't help but wisecrack some more as he finally got to resuming his departure. With his back turned to Kuwabara and an empty street ahead of him, Sakyo gave a wave as he joked, "Try not to spoil her."

"Hey! As if I would ever do such a thing to my favorite niece!"

"She's your only niece," Sakyo retorted correctly, though he stopped walking as he said this.

A good kid…he had never been one of those. He had been rotten and broken from the very beginning with no tragedy or reason why. He just was. So far she didn't seem to have his problem, so perhaps things would be better for her…

"And, unlike her father, she isn't rotten to the core. I'd like it to stay that way."

Kuwabara had left his family's house with the intention of beating Sakyo's face in, but at that moment he found himself silently respecting the man. He was a flawed, terrible man, but he still had a way about him that set him apart from the others who might be said to be that same way.

In any case, Kuwabara let him go partly as a testament to his newfound respect for his former enemy, as well as a result of the breakfast he was sure Yukina was making inside. His eternal affection for Yukina would not allow for him to stop displaying his love for her at any given moment he could, so once Sakyo was gone Kuwabara rushed right back inside and joined his family in what would be one of the most quiet family breakfasts ever for them.

Throughout it though the smiling faces of both Shizuru and Naomi made Kuwabara and his own significant other smile too. Similarly to the quiet bond between Shizuru and Sakyo, little needed to be said for them all to understand one another.

Three of them having psychic powers likely helped though, if one were to be less sentimental and dissect the idea.

* * *

"Hey, drop the low life, low life."

As Sakyo bled on the ground he had been grabbed again by one of the thugs looking to inflict more pain on the man who slightly harmed him. What would have been a beating that would have killed the gambler for the second time never actually came though.

The female voice made the thug stop, and a scream of "Spirit sword!" echoed out. Before the barely-conscious Sakyo could pick himself up and see what was happening the sound of three men being viciously beaten rang in his ears, and he found himself being lifted to his feet.

"Let's get you home. Yukina has healing magic, and you sure look like you could use some."

Sakyo had managed to barely grab the photo that had been dropped as his two-time lover helped him to his feet. How had she and her brother found him so quickly?

"Shizuru…" he weakly commented as he brought a hand to his chest. The last time he died it was instant. This was far more painful.

"My brother and I are psychics," Shizuru commented, explaining enough for the intelligent man to figure it out for himself. They had felt his energy and came to help him when something happened to it. Good thing Sakyo had taken to staying in their part of town, even if not their specific street or set of streets, "I think Naomi is too, but she's too young to really tell."

Sakyo cast a glance over to the men on the ground who Kuwabara was finishing kicking, for they had stopped moving and it was at that point that a man of honor would stop fighting. Sakyo wanted to glower at them, but he was too weakened to muster the strength to cast the despicable youths a glare.

He was a man of his word though, and as promised there was an incident later the police were unable to understand where a series of families had their sons and brothers hearts force fed to them before they too were murdered. This gross action was blamed on gang violence, and the issue swept away.

"What jerks though. Why would they knife someone after mugging them?" Shizuru groaned as she helped Sakyo over to their family car they had taken to rush over there. Hopefully with enough speeding back to the house everything would be fine, since Shizuru doubted Sakyo was the type who could or would go to a hospital.

Sakyo gave a weak smile as she put him in the passenger seat and shut the door on him, the window's open nature allowing the conversation to continue, "I may have threatened them when they tried to take something from me."

Shizuru got in the driver's seat and snorted as she started the car.

"Huh. And here I thought you were smart."

Kuwabara complained about not being in the car yet as Shizuru began to leave, her mind more focused on the bleeding man than her brother's ego. Speaking of egos though, Sakyo revealed some of his own as he chuckled with some coughing at his own situation.

"You know, I honestly would rather bleed out than be criticized for being stabbed."

"Yeah yeah, just don't go and die on me again. And don't tell Naomi the only reason you're around is that you were stupid and got knifed, okay?"

Shizuru looked over to see that Sakyo had collapsed onto the dashboard in front of him, though his soft breathing revealed he was still alive. His lack of consciousness meant he dropped what was in his hand though, the fallen object now resting on his lap.

The sight of herself and Naomi made Shizuru realize why Sakyo had done something stupid. He would never admit it, but there was a human part of him beneath it all. Even rotten apples have small pieces that are still fresh after all.

Part of her wanted to think of that night as a reward for his humanity, but in reality it was just really her living out years of dreams with little objection from her healed lover. His only objection was when in the middle of the night they received a visitor in the form of a little girl afraid of lightning…Shizuru overruled him, and so he spent the night coddling a girl who ought to be old enough to be past such trivial fears.

Sakyo would kill himself at the pure normalcy of it all, but now he knew there was someone who would just heal him if he tried.

At least, that was his excuse for not going through with his word this one time, he would complain to Shizuru. But I don't care, I'm not as touchy-feely as my brother. It's why I told you everything in an impersonal way, but I'm tired of having to beat around the bush.

I love Sakyo. So what if it's not as traditional or honorable as what Kazu has with Yukina? This works good enough for me and, for now, that's all that matters.

* * *

_**A/N: Thank you for reading this alternate take on things in Yu Yu Hakusho, and I hope you enjoyed! I wanted to capture the weirdness of the relationship as well as display that Sakyo is genuinely a sociopath, yet he still has this bond that's so different from his normal ways and self.**_

_**Please leave your thoughts in the comments below, especially if you would like to see any more Sakyo/Shizuru in the future!**_


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